Charles Barkley sounds off on new NBA TV deal: ‘I’m not sure TNT ever had a chance’
Charles Barkley took to Instagram on Friday morning to express the sentiment many basketball fans have felt this week:
“It just sucks.”
Barkley, a longtime analyst on TNT’s popular “Inside the NBA” studio show, made his remarks in a statement posted two days after the league completed an 11-year, $76-billion media rights deal with NBCUniversal, Walt Disney Co.’s ESPN and Amazon beginning with the 2025-26 season.
That deal means TNT, which has broadcast NBA games since 1989, will no longer do so after the upcoming season. Parent company Warner Bros. Discovery filed a lawsuit Friday against the NBA in New York Supreme Court, asserting that the league breached its current deal by allegedly refusing to honor Turner’s rights to match an offer from Amazon in the new contract.
The parent company of the TNT cable network asserts the NBA breached its current deal by allegedly refusing to honor rights to match an offer from Amazon.
Barkley didn’t hold back.
“They can’t go on like this,” Bank of America analyst Jessica Reif Ehrlich said, referring to the lagging stock and string of missteps by Warner Bros. Discovery boss David Zaslav.
“Clearly the NBA has wanted to break up with us from the beginning,” he wrote. “I’m not sure TNT ever had a chance. TNT matched the money, but the league knows Amazon and these tech companies are the only ones willing to pay for the rights when they double in the future. The NBA didn’t want to piss them off.
“It’s a sad day when owners and commissioners choose money over the fans. It just sucks.”
Barkley elaborated later Friday during an appearance on the “Dan Patrick Show.”
“What I really think happened was, ‘cause they brought in another partner, this was a last-ditch cash grab by the NBA and the players,” Barkley said. “That’s why I think they signed an 11-year deal, sort of like, ‘Hey, let’s get as much money as we possibly can right now. This is gonna be our last bite of the apple because TNT, ABC/ESPN, they’re not gonna pay more money going forward.’ That’s why I think they’re like... ‘Let’s get in bed with the streaming ‘cause they’re gonna be the only people that can afford us in 11 years. That’s just my honest opinion.”
The NBA declined to comment.
”Inside the NBA” started in 1989. Ernie Johnson became the show’s first and only permanent host the next year and was later joined by analysts Kenny Smith (1998), Barkley (2000) and Shaquille O’Neal (2011). Over the years, the show has provided plenty of basketball analysis and lots of laughs.
TNT’s ‘Inside the NBA’ show with Charles Barkley, Shaquille O’Neal, Kenny Smith and Ernie Johnson will likely end after the 2024-25 season with the NBA leaving the network.
That all seems to be coming to an end — but not quite yet.
“We’re going to give you everything we have next season,” Barkley wrote.
Barkley said last month that next season will be his last on TV no matter what happened with the rights deal. But he admitted to Patrick that he has “spoken to all three networks who got the NBA going forward.”
“I’d be stupid not to take their call,” said Barkley, who added that he is still leaning toward retiring in a year.
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